


Saciva

by avani



Category: Baahubali (Movies)
Genre: Backstory, Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-11
Updated: 2018-08-11
Packaged: 2019-06-25 16:01:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,041
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15644133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avani/pseuds/avani
Summary: The position of secretary to the Queen Mother is a delicate and difficult one, and consequently goes unfilled for many years.





	Saciva

**Author's Note:**

  * For [AllegoriesInMediasRes](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AllegoriesInMediasRes/gifts).



The position of secretary to the Queen Mother is a delicate and difficult one, and consequently goes unfilled for many years. Sivagami raises no objection: she prefers to read all official reports and diplomatic envoys herself, rather than depend on the summaries of another, and is not her penmanship famed in ten kingdoms for its elegance?

But her advisors insist, and Sivagami has always been one to choose her conflicts carefully.

So she welcomes their preferred candidate, a provincial stripling who appears barely cultured enough to wield a pen, much less have the wit to wage war with it, as one must.

“Saket,” Sivagami reads from the letter of recommendation he has brought with him. “Named for the heavens of the gods. Are those your origins?”

The boy only grins, undeterred by her irony. “My origins mean nothing, Queen Mother, compared to my ambitions. I mean to bring about the heavens within Mahishmati itself.”

Sivagami cannot resist a returned smile. She has always enjoyed the company of the brazen and the bold, and that of the enterprising more than any of them; that in itself speaks more than the list of foreign languages in which Saket is said to be fluent.

“Report to my study at dawn,” she instructs. “Though I warn you, I might well dismiss you within the week.”

Saket only ducks his head, too unaccustomed to politics to hide his pleasure as he should. “We shall see, Queen Mother,” he murmurs at he bows in farewell, and Sivagami smothers a laugh behind her hand.

*

Saket proves himself to exceed both her low expectations and her advisors’ impossible assurances of his quality. In months he has made himself indispensable; and while Sivagami still insists on personally reviewing her correspondence, she grows lax enough to allow him the liberty of taking dictation with only the most cursory of checks afterwards.

He is of use not only as a mirror to her own commands. In private, he ventures—respectfully, of course—his own suggestions when requested, and not all of them are entirelyimpractical. He knows his bounds, and stays and serves within them, and Sivagami asks no more.

If there is one weakness Sivagami knows within herself, it is that of a heart too willing to foster and protect the worthy: and no amount of cold blood beating within can temper its whims.

She learns her lesson soon enough.

*

The trouble starts when Saket wishes to wed—or is promised to wed, she’s never quite sure of the specifics—the apparently fetching daughter of a southern noble in possession of sizable estates: estates, which, unfortunately, must be secured to the crown if it is to control the border. And so it is not kind, but understandable, that Sivagami confiscates them much to the family’s indignation: a necessary sacrifice for safety.

The betrothal is dissolved, of course, considering Saket’s partisanship for the Queen Mother, but that night even her loyal Saket questions her judgment for the first time. As tempting as it is, she does not simply wave aside his dissent, but instead answers as honestly as she can.

“Do you remember what you told me when first we met?” she reminds him. “Birth and blood fade before ambition, and so too must all else. Without that, however might we bring to life our dreams of what the kingdom might be?”

Saket says nothing, but nor does he argue. She takes this as his assent.

*

But, true, too, that he is never the same afterwards, and while his work is unchanged in its quality, and his dedication never falters, there is a hard glint in his eyes that was not there before. She bites the fear that it was she who put it there: no, the world is a hard place, and one must become hard to face it. Sivagami learned that lesson staring down Martand; better her protege learn in a gentler fashion, and be grateful for it.

Regardless, when the news arrives that Saket has betrayed them, she knows rage, resentment, and resolve, but not surprise.

Even after his capture, she does not visit him in his cell, does not allow him in her presence except when he is necessary in his capacity as translator. She is frightened, her advisors speculate; she is grieving, her maids whisper, and none of them know her in the least.

In the wake of victory, she calls him before her,bound and bedraggled. She dismisses all hangers-on present—best not to have witnesses for this interview—and says, flatly: “Forgive me.”

Saket lifts his head, wide-eyed, and Sivagami allows him that one moment of imagining her merciful before she continues: “‘Ambition before all else,’ I said to you, and thought you had the wisdom to understand, but, despite my affection and admiration, of course you did not.”

An insult, the least of those he has received over the past few days, and still he flinches. 

“Before all else, certainly, but not before Mahishmati. _Nothing_ can come before Mahishmati—not me, not you, not any rival kingdom that promises you gold and power beyond anything we can.”

Saket shakes his head. “What will you do with me, Queen Mother?” A foolish question: he has written enough execution orders on her behalf to know what to expect, to know she would have ordered such long ago if that were her intention. “Hang me?

“Neither,” says Sivagami. “I mean to promote you.” And, as he gapes, she explains: “It occurs to me we are in need of an ambassador to the Kalakeyas; how else are we to collect tribute and allegiance? And certainly no one else is as familiar with their tongue and their traditions as you, Saket. Go and make your heaven there.” His face pales, and she knows why: the Kalakeyas do not suffer fools and traitors, least of all the man who had promised them Mahishmati and failed to deliver.

A fate he does not entirely deserve, perhaps, but she must thank him, after all: he has taught her the dangers of ignoring the first signs of defiance, of allowing vipers to nest in her breast. Once, yes, but no more--after all, she has never needed to learn a lesson twice.

**Author's Note:**

> One of these days, "character study of Sivagami via her relationship with her servants/inner circle" won't be my go-to for exchange fic.
> 
> Today is not this day ;).
> 
> Title means, creatively enough, "secretary" in Sanskrit.


End file.
